Promoting strategic documents by bias ranking of search results on a web browser

• US 20040199419A1
• Filed: 04/10/2002
• Published: 10/07/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 11/13/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Kozakov, Lev, Kim, Moon Ju, Drissi, Youssef, Doganata, Yurdaer Nezihi, Rodriguez, Juan-Leon
• Granted Patent: US 8,117,072 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/26.1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0241 Advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0633 Lists, e.g. purchase orders, compilation or processing

Abstract

A method, software and apparatus are provided which enable a user to obtain products and services in a manner which counteracts conflicting actions modifying raw ranking data based on merchants interests. For this purpose, an information a user'"'"'s web browser is provided with modules that modify search results obtained from one or more sources including directly from merchants. When the user enters a set of key words in an entry field in an on-screen form for a web server to obtain a list of items (products and/or services) of interest to the user, the search terms are modified in the users or his agents browser to reflect the interest of the user, his management or his parents. The user or his agent receives ranking information taking the highest ranked products and obtains the product information for the most highly ranked products. The browser then reranks the products using a ranking algorithm preferred by the user that offsets information sources biases in the ranking of the product information. The algorithm adds weighting factors reflecting the modified search terms. The weighting factors are combined with the mentioned ranking mechanisms to the documents to increase the probability that certain items come to the top when the search results are presented to the shopper.

Claims

1. A method for enabling a response to a user'"'"'s on-line keyword interrogation, said software comprising:

modifying the keyword interrogation in the shopper'"'"'s internal browser;

obtaining the rankings and descriptions of products or services in the browser based on the modified keyword interrogation;

reranking the products or services in the browser at least partially based on the modifications to the keyword interrogation;

modifying the ranking of at least one of the products or services ranked by the reranking; and

providing a presentation of products by the browser that presents the products in order of rank determined by both the initial ranking and the reranking of at least one of the reranked products.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the reranking factors include factors for the customer'"'"'s buying preferences.

3. The method of claim 1 including using a weighting factor to modify the ranking of a group of the products.

4. The method of claim 3 including limiting the highest ranked of the group for insertion into the presentation prior to application of the weighting Factor.

5. The method of claim 4 including intermixing in the presentation products of a plurality of merchants where the products of all merchants is presented to the user in order of rank.

6. A computer software product on a computer usable medium for enabling a browser to tailor a response to a shopper'"'"'s on-line keyword interrogations, said software comprising:

software for modifying the keyword interrogations;

computer code for obtaining the rankings and descriptions of products offered on the internet based on the modified keyword interrogation;

reranking computer code for reranking the merchants products based on the modified keyword interrogation; and

computer code for providing a presentation of merchants products to the customer that presents a plurality of the merchants products in order of rank, where the rank of at least one of the products is determined by the modified keyword interrogation.

7. The computer program product of claim 6 including other weighting computer codes for taking into account other ranking factors.

8. The computer program code of claim 7, wherein the other ranking factors include the customer'"'"'s buying characteristics.

9. The computer program code of claim 10, wherein the ranking of the at least one product is in accordance with the following formula:

R=1F(% wTf+x% Popularity+y% LA)

where;

w, x and y=proportions applied to the other weighting factors

Popularity=product popularity conforming to the raw weighting factor

LA=users past buying practice

Tf=Text Factors